There’s too much to be said about this part of the United States. It’s both one of the most beautiful regions I’ve been to, and the most depressing. I find myself looking back at the 48 hours I spent in these mountains both relieved that it was a short visit, but also looking forward to going back some day. I focused my camera almost entirely on the abandoned relics of the coal industry. It’s what I know, and what I can process. Everything else-the thousands of abandoned homes, the cars and personal belongings littering post-flood valleys, and the extreme poverty beyond anything I’ve seen in an urban area—that was harder to get my brain around on this first trip. It was a bit more disturbing than I was ready for. Some day I’d like to go back, shoot more and talk more with those who somehow survive in this severely neglected corner of the country. Until then, here’s the corpses of Big Coal.
